“Thou shalt not kill,” Miss Sinclair screamed back. He slapped her again, but she laughed again when he did, obviously beyond feeling the pain. “You’ve lost, Father. You’ve lost and you’ll be hanged, and I’ll be happy.” She glanced from him to Smith and Vi. “Now.”
The reverend spun, grabbing his daughter, but she went boneless, so he lost his grip on her. She scrambled away, and before he could haul her back to use her for a shield, Smith shoved the end of his pistol against the reverend’s temple and growled. “I should very much like to pull this trigger, so I suggest you don’t tempt me beyond my ability to resist.”
Vi gaped for a moment. The angel that Smith always seemed to be had disappeared and only a devil was left. His cold, beautiful eyes held the promise of destruction.
Vi circled the desk and picked up the telephone, demanding the police be sent and then she rushed to Miss Sinclair. Miss Sinclair had turned onto her back and pushed herself against the wall. Her knees were pulled to her chest, and her face, swollen and red and bleeding, showed the price of the confession she’d acquired.
“You won,” Vi told her.
“Not yet.” Miss Sinclair slowly pushed herself up as Smith shoved her father into a chair and tied him to it with his own belt.
He was shouting, but Miss Sinclair took a thick handkerchief from her father’s pocket and shoved it into his mouth. When she didn’t have to hear his diatribe anymore, she said, “I was never going to marry Jason. I was going to, am going to, marry Bryce Smith. He’s a good man. He loves me. He’s gentle and kind, and you’d have hated him, but you’ll never meet him now. While you’re in prison for what you’ve done, I’ll be married to the man I love.”
The rage was enough to set the room on fire. The reverend rocked in the chair, he was trying so hard to break free and attack his daughter again.
“Once I heal,” she finished, “I’ll never think of you again.”
Vi didn’t believe that for a moment, so she added, “If he does cross your mind, remember the hellfire sermons that he preached and the certainty that he committed murder and will be experiencing the fate he threatened so many others with.”
Miss Sinclair laughed and then the laughter turned to tears as constables, along with Jack and Ham, poured through the front door.
“Vi!” Jack said, and then paused. He took in the sight of the bloodied and bruised Miss Sinclair. The question he was about to ask, ‘are you all right,’ faded. “She needs a doctor.”
“I think she’d like to tell her story first,” Smith said. “But I could tell it for her.”
The Scotland Yard men started to say no. They did hate Smith with his crooked ways and the lack of evidence for the crimes they were sure he’d committed. However, Miss Sinclair’s bruises were forming and her eyes were shining with brave tears and hard-fought pain, so they stepped back when Ham shot them a threatening glare.
“Jack can give you our address,” Violet told them. “Miss Sinclair will be in bed, with cocoa and morphine, as soon as I can get a doctor to look after her.”
Jack reached out and placed a solitary finger on Vi. He was holding back the question because it was so insensitive to ensure Vi wasn’t hurt as well. “I’m fine, Jack,” she told him quietly.
It was an out-and-out lie, and she wanted nothing more than to return home and drown herself in ginger wine until the immediacy of what she’d just seen had faded, but she wasn’t injured, so she tried to project that truth to the man she loved instead.
Chapter 18
“We messed up, Vi,” Smith said as he entered the parlor with Jack, Ham, and the detectives assigned to the murder case. None of them seemed very pleased, and the disgust on their faces was evident.
Someone should really have checked to see if they were available, Vi thought, glancing at her friends. They’d decided upon pajamas and kimonos when they saw the expression on Vi’s face once she left Miss Sinclair’s side. She looked haunted, which meant they needed chocolate and cocktails. Only Victor and Denny wore their usual clothes. Even Kate had joined in on the pajamas and kimono.
Vi lifted her glass to Smith, ignoring the detectives, as she replied. “I don’t know that I care. But I will swear on my mother’s grave that he was guilty and I heard him say it.”
“Not that.” Smith crossed to the bar and poured himself a large teacup of whiskey since their crystal glasses had been sacrificed just that morning.
It felt like a year ago, Vi thought. It felt as though she’d been put through a trial by fire since then. She shuddered and curled tighter into the chaise lounge. She was sitting in her living room with the rest of the ladies staying there, barring Miss Sinclair.
“The old woman, Vi. The old woman.”
Vi was fairly zozzled at that moment, so she was slow to ask. “The cuckoo clock woman?”
“She’s dead,” Jack finished. He sat next to her and pulled her hand into his, unashamedly giving the back of it a quick kiss. “Smith recounted everything that you saw and heard. None of us realized what he meant about having taken care of Bertha Meyers, except the fool man laughed when he heard Smith explain that the reverend felt he’d silenced Mrs. Meyers.”
“He laughed?” Rita asked, not objecting to Ham checking her temperature with the back of his hand. She seemed to lean into his touch.
“What an animal,” Victor said.
“The reverend had poisoned her sherry,” Ham said gently. “She didn’t partake every night, but often enough he could be sure she’d die in the days after her grandson’s
